_________________________________________________ Dayna Patterson is Poetry Editor at Psaltery & Lyre. For more, and information about where else to find her work, go here. Photo by JRLibby, 2012 via Wikimedia Commons.
This is a rewrite of an earlier post published here on WIZ. One dark night in January of 2010 Mark and I made a last minute run to the only grocery store within 22 miles. On our return trip home, I drove with the SUV’s highbeams on, because we live on a rural road where, [...]
The sky’s an ocean, as all eagles know Who plumb the splendour nest to keel, A craze of very ships in fleets that flow On voyages forbidden whale and seal. Its currents race, chained to the planet’s turn, Churned by the jilted passion of the sun, Exacting fervor from the veil-eyed fern Mured in a [...]
A nameless beaver sprang the trap. Must have swum through it on his way up shore. The two dogs, Jax and Cleo, crouched in their winter coats, Gripped and pulled, But the snare held, Jealous of its prey. I found them: Red paw prints in the savaged snow, Scrabbling blindly at the brink. They parted [...]
Part One here. This is a GREEN LANGUAGE post. New kid on the block niche construction course-corrects the previous scientific proposition that evolution is a one-way road: “Adaptation is always asymmetrical; organisms adapt to their environment, never vice versa” (Bickerton quoting George Williams, p. 92). The niche construction light switched on for Bickerton when he [...]
As with most of the books I review that I like, this review runs on and runs wild. So I had to divide it in two. This is the first part. This is a GREEN LANGUAGE post. Title: Adam’s Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans Author: Derek Bickerton Publisher: Hill and Wang [...]
If ducks be here, Lord love ‘em,*
 For ducks** were made by Him: 
Like lambs and tigers,*** sticks and stones,
 Whales and whistles, broken bones,
 Dogs and squirrels, cats**** and mice, 
Girls***** and gimmicks, fire and ice. 
And, if ducks, then children,****** too; 
Which is to say, the Lord made you.******* _________________________________________________________________________________________________ * There is, [...]
My cat’s named “Chairman Maoâ€:* She’s dropped the “i†somehow. She’s dropped the thing, But, Marx bless Ming,** Still has a frightful Yao.*** __________________________________ The image above is a 2012 scan of a 1999 oil on oilcloth reproduction of a 1942 photograph of a late Victorian cameo of an early Victorian watercolour portrait of Chairman [...]
This segment is from a longer piece, Plato’s Alcove, which won an honorable mention in Torrey House Press’s 2011 Creative Non-Fiction Contest. You can read the entire entry here. Plato’s Alcove is about my first trip to the desert back in 1982. In the desert one day I met Coyote, the Trickster-God. We greeted each [...]
Light’s rise sparks bright blooms: birdsong, fields of it, vining– spring’s first green flourish. These mornings, I step outside my back door to hear the hush of winter thrown off by a clamor of birdsong–the crackle of starlings, jazzy riffs of purple house finches, a lonely two-syllable call from a flycatcher, screeches and churrings of [...]